Just to ponder the competition...
First, visual between E-P1 and K20d (apologies for even more indoor lousy light photos)
As you can see it is smaller than a dSLR, but it sill is a fair bit bigger than DLux4 (or equivalent) p&s. The big difference is that the body shape is very different, so it presents one with either an advantage(s) or disadvantage(s) wrt ergos. It isn't a real light camera - metal construction (though a cheap plastic batter and port door) and substantial. The lens is tiny and light (plastic - boo). Shown is the 43ltd that I hope to mount to it with a u4/3-K adapter.
More confusing menus than the Pentax, but that is a particular strength of Pentax imho. Lots of customizability but some on the Oly isn't intuitive and I had to actually rtfm.
I had hoped that this camera would be a "middle ground" between dSLR and p&s. And so far that is exactly what it is. It gets noisy above iso200, but I like the grain size/shape when it does. The 17mm has barrel distortion (boo) that is corrected in jpg in-camera (yeah) but not in raw (boo). The vibe is very old-school, and it doesn't announce it's presence in public like a dSLR does - a big plus for how I shoot. It also gets a somewhat surreal look at high iso at night - again something that I like. The raw files are not nearly as clean and nice as the K20d - but again, I'm looking for something different.
Bottom line is that it is a very different camera, with a different feel and look. I've shot some of the same subjects with my DLux4, E-P1 and K20d. All look different. And that is great. And that being said, next purchase will be a K7, as I now think I "get" how that will work for me. But not as a replacement for the K20d...
Some shots with the E-P1/17 setup at night (AF, iso 1600)
And some during the day (with associated crop - in-camera jpg with no pp)
Last edited by nostatic; 07-19-2009 at 05:00 PM.